Blog Bits

  1. John Small blogs his ACC submission. He has many questions about the motorcyclist proposed levies.
  2. Steven Price quotes Richard Posner on free speech – “The value of competition in ideas, coupled with the costs (including error costs) of effective regulation, provides some grounding for a legal approach that deems the benefits of free speech to be great, and thus requires proof of great cost… to justify restricting speech.” I also agree with Judge Posner, and note that many proposed restrictions on electoral speech fail to prove there is a problem or cost that requires restrictions to fix it.
  3. Tim Selwyn blogs on how New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent $161 a vote or $90 million on an election he won by just 50,000 votes. He concludes that it really isn’t possible to “buy” an election based on the evidence here and in the US.
  4. Jolisa Gracewood blogs on how she discovered Witi Ihimaera is a plagiarist. Paul Holmes wonders why Auckland University is defending the plagiarism as an “accident”, ie not deliberate.
  5. David Cohen labels Sgt Kimberly Munley a “very cool lady”. I can only agree as I read how she stopped the Fort Hood gunman as she “bolted from her car, yanked her pistol out and shot at Major Hasan. He turned on her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and Major Hasan went down with several bullet wounds”. He was stopped as he was chasing a wounded solider.
  6. MacDoctor blogs on the US House passing Obama’s healtcare bill by 220 to 215.